Implementing corporate ethics management and its comparison with the safety management system: a case study in Hong Kong

A case study of one general contracting construction organization in Hong Kong was undertaken. The study illustrates the current state of corporate ethics management in the implementation of a corporate code of ethics. The overall process of developing the corporate code of ethics from planning to implementation was investigated. It was found that the corporate management of the organization that was studied adopted a laissez-faire approach in implementing its code at the project level. This means that there was no formal and unified cross-organizational plan for implementing the code at the project level. The methods of communicating the corporate code of ethics to the members of the project team were left to the discretion of the individual project manager. The research findings also showed that different project managers adopted different methods of communication to disseminate the corporate code of ethics to members of their project team.